The Last Man Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Hearing that Kevin Kline is starring in a new film always sets off my alarm, eagerly hoping for something like The Anniversary Party or A Midsummer Night's Dream (and not Trade or The Pink Panther). And this just may be it... Variety reports that Klein, Paul Dano, John C. Reilly, and Katie Holmes have signed on for an adaptation of Jonathan Ames' The Extra Man. Shari Springer Berman wrote the script with Ames, and will direct along with American Splendor director Robert Pulcini.

The book follows a troubled young man (Dano) who gets a teaching job in New York City and ends up living with an "elderly eccentric" (Kline) who spends his time as "the extra man" for rich old women on the East Side. (Ouch. The thought of Kline as "elderly" truly saddens me...) While the old man teaches him some tidbits about city living, like how to sneak into Broadway plays, the younger roommate struggles with his uncertain sexual orientation with cross-dressing and forays into "New York's transvestite underworld."

There is no word on who Reilly or Holmes will play, but maybe one of the book's fans could shed some light on character possibilities? Not that it really matters -- just the thought of Kline, Dano, and Reilly together is enough to sell me, and I'm dying to see what Dano and Kline do with their roles. And who knows? Maybe this will mean a big comeback for Holmes as well (as a big-screen actress) -- she was wonderful in the last film she shared with Klein -- Ang Lee's The Ice Storm.

I adore the idea that Pakistan recently made its first gore flick. Hell's Ground may be "an unwaveringly derivative and preposterously gory little genre concoction," as our own Scott Weinberg observed when it played at Fantastic Fest, but, as he added, "it's just a lot of fun to see how such an oft-told tale gets filtered through another culture." Exactly! So my curiosity was piqued when David Hudson at the indispensable GreenCine Daily pulled out this quote: "Ghassan Salhab's The Last Man (2006) ... delivers something probably less expected: the first Lebanese vampire movie."

OK, I confess: I misread the line and thought it was referring to the first lesbian vampire movie. But more careful reading stirred genuine interest: The Last Man is being shown as part of the 11th annual Arab Film Festival in San Francisco, and the writer, Robert Avila of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, went on to say: "As it turns out, a Lebanese vampire movie not only makes perfect sense but is also the best thing to happen to the genre in a long time." Avila makes the case that the film "opens the field to new resonance with a deft artistry that recapitulates the vampire film's enduring tropes while making nearly every shot a fresh, unexpected surprise."

The entire article is well worth reading, yet it becomes clear that genre fans looking for a quick jolt of blood, guts and gore will not find it in The Last Man. For example, the sole IMDb commenter felt it was "grindingly slow, disconnected, and boring. ... if you must see this movie, be sure to drink plenty of coffee so that you won't rudely fall asleep." On the other hand, when it played at the Tribeca film fest this past spring, Andrew O'Heir of Salon called it his favorite of the whole festival, though he acknowledged that it "undoubtedly would strike some viewers as unbearably pretentious." The Last Man will screen on Saturday evening, October 20, as part of the Arab Film Festival. it does not yet have US distribution More information can be found at the web site of production company Agat Films.